D&D General Unearthed Arcana presents another three villainous subclasses

The last Unearthed Arcana gave us some villainous options, including subclasses and feat chains which enabled your character to turn into a death knight or a lich. This week, a new Unearthed Arcana over on D&D Beyond presents us with three new villainous subclasses, following on from the subclasses and feat-chains in the previous playtest document. These subclasses are designed to let players "embrace their inner antiheroes or engage with sinister powers". In this one, we get the Path of Lament (barbarian), Warrior of Venom (monk), and Primordial Patron (warlock).

The barbarian's Path of Lament harnesses sorrow and anguish, leaning into a Banshee's Wail feature which allows the barbarian to cause psychic damage with their voice. The monk's Warrior of Venom enables the character to exude bodily toxins, including hallucinogens and truth serums. This monk also makes use of the Bloodied condition allowing the character's blood to splash onto their attacker when they receive a melee strike, Xenomorph-style. Finally, the warlock's primordial patron is an alliance with a destructive force of nature, such as the Elemental Evils.

You can check out the new Unearthed Arcana playtest here.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Two further thoughts for the Primordial Patron:

• The water list is really weak.
• Both the invocations encourage you to specialize, which is in direct odds with the ability to shift the element of your patron with every level. If you want the flexibility to shift, then you shouldn't be taking these feats.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I do hate that we've gone back to acid damage for earth-aligned elementalist PCs. I mean, other than that one scene in The Mummy with the salt trap, when has earth=acid been a thing?

Duh, acid is green. The earth is green.

 

[saviirkad]

Banshee's wail vs envenom weapon....seem....not very balanced against each other....

Yeah I was really surprised at how powerful this monk is right from lvl 3.

Banshee's wail may not be as good but it's still a really nice way for a barbarian to do some distant AOE damage without dropping rage. I'd probably reflavor the heck out of it.

 

[humble minion]

Both the invocations encourage you to specialize, which is in direct odds with the ability to shift the element of your patron with every level. If you want the flexibility to shift, then you shouldn't be taking these feats.

I missed that, and I hate it, bleh. This continual switching of your allegiances, power sets, proficiencies, and every other damn thing according to today's tactical convenience is a 5.5 design trope that i truly despise.

One thing that does occur to me though - could this primordial warlock be a stealth playtest of the new implementation of the Dark Sun elemental cleric?

 

[Leatherhead]

Are people seriously saying the Barbarian overpowered now? From a 7 average damage AoE coming off of their secondary stat?

The Venom monk is just a non starter because it uses poison. Too many things are immune to poison or being poisoned. Quit making subclasses that use poison. Even changing the damage from Poisoned too acid is going to leave you with like half a subclass or less in far too many situations. In order for a poisoner to work, they would have to completely bypass poison and poisoned immunity of monsters.

The Primordial Patron isn't as fun as the old Genie patron, and isn't particularly evil coded.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I like the Path of Lament Barbarian thematically, it's a fun concept. I think the biggest thing about Banshee's Wail is just the ability to take out weak mobs of creatures, though I'd have to see how well instantly taking out creatures with HP less than twice your Barbarian level actually works.

Warrior of Venom feels like a corrupted Warrior of Mercy to me. I feel that Toxic Touch should use one attack instead of being a magic action, to me it's like a special version of Stunning Strike.

Primordial Patron Warlock is all about moving their sphere around like Flaming Sphere. Being the main feature of the subclass, I think it's duration actually needs an in between from 1 minute at 3rd to 1 hour at 14th. Like it needs to be 10 minutes at some point, or even start with that duration.

 

[humble minion]

Are people seriously saying the Barbarian overpowered now? From a 7 average damage AoE coming off of their secondary stat?

To nitpick, it's not a 7 average damage AoE. It's a number of d12s equal to the Rage damage bonus, so 13 average damage from level 3-8, 19 from level 9-15, and 26 from 16-20. That's genuinely nasty as a bonus action at the lower level end and remains relevant against crowds, but jeez you don't get many uses of it.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Are people seriously saying the Barbarian overpowered now? From a 7 average damage AoE coming off of their secondary stat?

The Venom monk is just a non starter because it uses poison. Too many things are immune to poison or being poisoned. Quit making subclasses that use poison. Even changing the damage from Poisoned too acid is going to leave you with like half a subclass or less in far too many situations. In order for a poisoner to work, they would have to completely bypass poison and poisoned immunity of monsters.

The Primordial Patron isn't as fun as the old Genie patron, and isn't particularly evil coded.

RAW, none of the venom monk's features require the poisoned condition; theoretically a zombie or golem could be slowed by their toxic strikes even though they lack a circulatory system. And for some boneheaded reason they tucked language that explicitly says "any poison damage you do via monk features can be changed to acid damage" in the ribbon that gives you poisoner's kit proficiency.

 

[Charlaquin]

We'll disagree this is a good idea that they are this extremely different. At least let the monk poison their hands and feet, not just weapons at level 3. ....I'm ok with that.

It’s not “good” so much as it’s a consequence of how the classes are designed.

 

[Leatherhead]

To nitpick, it's not a 7 average damage AoE. It's a number of d12s equal to the Rage damage bonus, so 13 average damage from level 3-8, 19 from level 9-15, and 26 from 16-20. That's genuinely nasty as a bonus action at the lower level end and remains relevant against crowds, but jeez you don't get many uses of it.

I may have been exaggerating, but you have to take into account the hit chance when calculating damage too. CON is notorious for being the hardest save to pierce, and it's running off of your secondary stat instead of your primary stat. On a class that generally speaking doesn't normally get saving throw DC boosters. You are going to be stuck doing half damage a lot of the time.